From the
first moment I clapped eye on the caricature thing of a
coat that Tammie Bodkin had, in my absence, shaped out
for Cursecowl the butcher, I foresaw, in my own mind,
that a catastrophe was brewing for us; and never did
soldier gird himself to fight the French, or sailor
prepare for a sea-storm, with greater alacrity, than I
did to cope with the bull-dog anger, and buffet back the
uproarious vengeance of our heathenish customer.

At first I thought of letting the thing take its natural
course, and of threaping down Cursecowl’s throat that he
must have been feloniously keeping in his breath when
Tammie took his measure ; and, moreover, that as it was
the fashion to be straight-laced, Tammie had done his
utmost trying to make him look like his betters; till,
my conscience checking me for such a nefarious
intention, I endeavoured, as became me in the relations
of man, merchant, and Christian, to solder the matter
peaceably, and show him, if there was a fault committed,
that there was no evil intention on my side of the
house. To this end I despatched the bit servant wench,
on the Friday afternoon, to deliver the coat, which was
neatly tied up in brown paper, and directed, "Mr
Cursecowl, with care," and to buy a sheep’s-head;
bidding her, by way of being civil, give my kind
compliments, and inquire how Mr and Mrs Cursecowl, and
the five little Miss Cursecowls, were keeping their
healths, and trusting to his honour in sending me a good
article. But have a moment’s patience.

Being busy at the time turning a pair of kuttikins for
old Mr Mooleypouch the mealmonger, when the lassie came
back I had no mind of asking a sight of the
sheep’s-head, as I aye like the little blackfaced in
preference to the White, fat, fozy Cheviot breed; but
most providentially I catched a gliskie of the wench
passing the shop window, on the road over to Jamie Coom
the smith’s, to get it singed, having been dispatched
there by her mistress. Running round the counter like
lightning, I opened the sneck, and halooed to her to
wheel to the right about, having, somehow or other, a
superstitious longing to look at the article. As I was
saying, there was a providence in this, which, at the
time, mortal man could never have thought of.

James Batter had popped in with a newspaper in his hand,
to read me a curious account of a mermaid that was seen
singing a Gaelic song, and combing its hair with a
tortoise-shell comb, someway terrible far north about
Shetland, by a respectable minister of the district,
riding home in the gloaming after a Presbytery dinner.
So, as he was just taking off his spectacles cannily,
and saying to me—" And was not that droll? ”—the lassie
spread down her towel on the counter, when, lo, and
behold I such an abominable spectacle ! James Batter
observing me run back, and turn white, put on his
glasses again, cannily taking them out of his well-worn
shagreen case, and, giving a stare down at the towel,
almost touched the beast’s
nose with his own.

"And what, in the name of goodness, is the rnatter?"
quo’ James Batter; "ye seem in a wonderful quandary.”

"The matter!” answered I, in astonishment, looking to
see if the man had lost his sight or his senses; "the
matter I who ever saw a sheep’s-head with straight
horns, and a visnomy all colours of the rainbow—red,
blue, orange, green, yellow, white, and black?”

"’Deed it is,” said James, after a nearer inspection;
"it must be a lowsy-naturay. I’m sure I have read most
of Buffon’s books, and I have never heard tell of the
like. It’s gey and queerish.”

"’Od, James,” answered I, "ye take everything very
canny; you’re a philosopher, to be sure; but I daresay
if the moon was to fall from the lift, and knock down
the old kirk, ye would say no more than ‘it’s gey and
queerish.’”

"Queerish, man! Do ye not see that?” added I, shoving
down his head mostly on the top of it. "Do ye not
see that? awful, most awful I extonishing ! Do ye not
see that long beard? Who, in the name of goodness, ever
was an eyewitness to a sheep’s-head, in a Christian
land, with a beard like an unshaven Jew, crying ‘ owl
clowes,’ with a green bag over his left shoulder ? ”

"Dog on it," said James, giving a fidge with his
hainches; "dog on it, - as I am a living sinner, that is
the head of a Willie-goat."

"Willie or Nannie,” answered I, "it’s not meat for me;
and never shall an ounce of it cross the craig of my
family—that is as sure as ever James Batter drave a
shuttle. Give counsel in need, James: what is to be
done?”

"That needs consideration,” quo’ James, giving a bit
hoast. "Unless he makes ample apology, and explains the
mistake in a feasible way, it is my humble opinion that
he ought to be summoned before his betters. That is the
legal way to make him smart for his sins.”

At last a thought struck me, and I saw farther through
my difficulties than ever mortal man did through a
millstone; but, like a politican, I minted not the
matter to James. Keeping my tongue cannily within my
teeth, I then laid the head, wrapped up in the bit
towel, in a corner behind the counter; and turning my
face round again to James, I put my hands into my
breeches-pockets, as if nothing in the world had
happened, and ventured back to the story of the mermaid.
I asked him how she looked —what kind of dress she
wore—if she swam with her corsets—what was the colour of
her hair—where she would buy the tortoise-shell comb—and
so on; when just as he was clearing his pipe to reply,
who should burst open the shop-door like a clap of
thunder, with burning cat’s een, and a face as red as a
soldier’s jacket, but Cursecowl himself, with the new
killing-coat in his hand, which, giving a tremendous
curse (the words of which are not essentially necessary
for me to repeat, being an elder of our kirk), he made
play flee at me with such a birr, that it I twisted
round my neck, and mostly blinding me, made me doze like
a tottum. At the same time, to clear his way, and the
better to enable him to take a good mark, he gave James
Batter a shove, that made him stoiter against the wall,
and snacked the good new farthing tobacco-pipe, that
James was taking his first whiff out of; crying at the
same blessed moment—

"Hold out o’ my road, ye long, withered wabster. Ye’re a
pair of havering idiots; but I’ll have pennyworths out
of both your skins, as I’m a sinner!”

What was to be done? There was no time for speaking; for
Cursecowl, foaming like a mad dog with passion, seized
hold of the ell-wand, which he flourished round his head
like a Highlander’s broadsword, and stamping about with
his stockings drawn up his thighs, threatened every
moment to commit bloody murder.

If James Batter never saw service before, he learned a
little of it that day, being in a pickle of bodily
terror not to be imagined by living man; but his
presence of mind did not forsake him, and he cowered for
safety and succour into a far corner, holding out a web
of buckram before him, me crying all the time —" Send
for the town-officer ! Will ye not send for the
town—officer? "

You may talk of your General Moores and your Lord
Wellingtons as ye like; but never, since I was born, did
I ever see or hear tell of anything braver than the way
Tammy Bodkin behaved, in saving both our precious lives,
at that blessed nick of time, from touch-and-go jeopardy
; for, when Cursecowl was rampauging about, cursing and
swearing like a Russian bear, hurling out volleys of
oaths that would have frighted John Knox, forbye the
like of us, Tammie stole in behind him like a wild cat,
followed by Joseph Breekey, Walter Cuff, and Jack Thorl,
the three apprentices, on their stocking-soles; and
having strong and dumpy arms, pinned back his elbows
like a flash of lightning, giving the other callants
time to jump on his back, and hold him like a vice ;
while, having got time to draw my breath, and screw up
my pluck, I ran forward like a lion, and houghed the
whole concern—Tammie Bodkin, the three faithful
apprentices, Cursecowl, and all, coming to the ground
like a battered castle.

It was now James Batter’s time to come up in line; and
though a douce man (being savage for the insulting way
that Cursecowl had dared to use him), he dropped down
like mad, with his knees on Cursecowl’s breast, who was
yelling, roaring, and grinding his buckteeth like a mad
bull, kicking right and spurring left with fire and
fury; and, taking his Kilmarnock off his head, thrust
it, like a battering-ram, into Cursecowl’s mouth, to
hinder him from alarming the neighbourhood, and bringing
the whole world about our ears.

Such a stramash of tumbling, roaring, tearing, swearing,
kicking, pushing, cuffmg, rugging, and riving about the
floor! I thought they would not have left one another
with a shirt on: it seemed a combat even to the death.
Cursecowl’s breath was choked up within him, like wind
in an empty bladder; and when I got a gliskie of his
face, from beneath James’s cowl, it was growing as black
as the crown of my hat. It feared me much that murder
would be the upshot, the webs being all heeled over,
both of broad cloth, buckram, cassimir, and Welsh
flannel; and the paper shapings and worsted runds coiled
about their throats and bodies like fiery serpents. At
long and last, I thought it became me, being the head of
the house, to sound a parley, and bid them give the
savage a mouthful of fresh air, to see if he had
anything to say in his defence.

Cursecowl, by this time, had forcible assurance of our
ability to overpower him, and finding he had by far the
worst of it, was obliged to grow tamer, using the first
breath he got to cry out —

"A barley, ye thieves! a barley! I tell you, give me
wind. There’s not a man in nine of ye!”

Finding our own strength, we saw, by this time, that we
were masters of the field; nevertheless we took care to
make good terms when they were in our power, nor would
we allow Cursecowl to sit upright till after he had
said, three times over, on his honour as a gentleman,
that he would behave as became one.

After giving his breeches-knees a skuff with his loof,
to dad off the stoure, he came, right foot foremost, to
the counter-side, while the laddies were dighting their
brows, and stowing away the webs upon their ends round
about, saying,—

"Maister Wauch, how have ye the conscience to send hame
such a piece o’ wark as that coat to ony decent man? Do
ye dare to imagine that I am a Jerusalem spider, that I
could be crammed, neck and heels, into such a thing as
that? Fie, shame—it would not button on yourself, man,
scarecrow-looking mortal though ye be!"

James Batter’s blood was now up, and boiling like an old
Roman’s; so he was determined to show Cursecowl that I
had a friend in court, able and willing to keep him at
stave’s end.

"Keep a calm sough," said James Batter, interfering;
"and not miscall the head of the house in his own shop;
or, to say nothing of present consequences, by way of
showing ye the road to the door, perhaps Maister
Sneckdrawer, the penny-writer, ’ll give ye a
caption-paper with a broad margin, to claw your elbow
with at your leisure, my good fellow."

"Pugh, pugh!” cried Cursecowl, snapping his finger and
thumb at James’ beak; "I do not value your threatening
an ill halfpenny. Come away out your ways to the crown
of the causey, and I’ll box any three of ye, over the
bannys, for half-a-mutchkin. But, ’ odsake, Batter, my
man, nobody’s speaking to you,” added Cursecowl, giving
a hack now and then, and a bit spit down on the floor;
"go hame, man, and get your cowl washed; I daresay you
have pushioned me, so I have no more to say to the like
of you. But now, Maister Wauch, just speaking hooly and
fairly, do you not think black burning shame of
yourself, for putting such an article into any decent
Christian man’s hand, like mine?”

"Wait a wee—wait a wee, friend, and I’ll give ye a lock
salt to your broth,"' answered I, in a calm and cool
way; for, being a confidential elder of Maister Wiggie’s,
I kept myself free from the sin of getting into a
passion, or lighting, except in self-defence, which is
forbidden neither by law nor gospel ; and, stooping
down, I took up the towel from the corner, and,
spreading it upon the counter, bade him look, and see if
he knew an auld acquaintance !

Cursecowl, to be such a dragoon, had some rational
points in his character; so, seeing that he lent ear to
me with a smirk on his rough red face, I went on:

"Take my advice as a friend, and make the best of your
way home, killing-coat and all ; for the most perfect
will sometimes fall into an innocent mistake, and, at
any rate, it cannot be helped now. But if ye show any
symptom of obstripulosity, I’ll find myself under the
necessity of publishing you abroad to the world for what
you are, and show about that head in the towel for a
wonder to broad Scotland, in a manner that will make
customers flee from your booth, as if it was infected
with the seven plagues of Egypt."

At sight of the goat’s head, Cursecowl clapped his hand
on his thigh two or three times, and could scarcely
muster good manners enough to keep himself from bursting
out a-laughing.

"Ye seem to have found a fiddle, friend,” said I; "but
give me leave to tell you, that ye’ll may be find it
liker a hanging-match than a musical matter. Are you not
aware that I could hand you over to the sheriff, on two
special indictments? In the first place, for an action
of assault and batterification, in cuffing me, an elder
of our kirk, with a sticked killing-coat, in my own
shop; and, in the second place, as a swindler, imposing
on his Majesty’s loyal subjects, taking the coin of the
realm on false pretences, and palming off goat’s flesh
upon Christians, as if they were perfect Pagans."

Heathen though Cursecowl was, this oration alarmed him
in a jiffie, soon showing him, in a couple of hurries,
that it was necessary for him to be our humble servant ;
so he said, still keeping the smirk on his face—

"Keh, keh, it’s not worth making a noise about after
all. Gie me the jacket, Mansie, my man, and it’ll maybe
serve my nephew, young Killim, who is as lingit in the
waist as a wasp. Let us take a shake of your paw over
the counter, and be friends. Bye-ganes should be bye-ganes.”

Never let it be said that Mansie Wauch, though one of
the king’s volunteers, ever thrust aside the olive
branch of peace ; so, ill-used though I had been, to say
nothing of James Batter, who had got his pipe smashed to
crunches, and one of the eyes of his spectacles knocked
out, I gave him my fist frankly.

James Batter’s birse had been so fiercely put up, and no
wonder, that it was not so easily sleeked down; so, for
a while, he looked unco glum, till Cursecowl insisted
that our meeting should not be a dry one; nor would he
hear a single word on me and James Batter not accepting
his treat of a mutchkin of Kilbugie.

I did not think James would have been so doure and
refractory, funking and Hinging like old Jeroboam ; but
at last, with the persuasion of the treat, he came to,
and, sleeking down his front hair, we all three took a
step down to the far end of the close, at the back
street, where Widow Thamson kept the sign of ‘The
Tankard and the Tappit Hen ;’ Cursecowl, when we got
ourselves seated, ordering in the spirits with a loud
rap on the table with his knuckles, and a whistle on the
landlady through his foreteeth, that made the roof ring.
A bottle of beer was also brought; so, after drinking
one another’s healths round, with a tasting out of the
dram glass, Cursecowl swashed the rest of the raw
creature into the tankard, saying—

“Now take your will o’t; there’s drink fit for a king ;
that’s real ‘Pap-in.’”

He was an awful body, Cursecowl, and had a power of
queer stories, which, weel—a-wat, did not lose in the
telling. James Batter, beginning to brighten up, hodged
and leuch like a nine-year-old; and I freely confess,
for another, that I was so diverted, that, I daresay,
had it not been for his fearsome oaths, which made our
very hair stand on end, and were enough to open the
stone—wall, we would have both sate from that time to
this.

We got the whole story of the Willie-goat, out and out,
it seeming to be with Cursecowl a prime matter of
diversion, especially that part of it relating to the
head, by which he had won a crown-piece from Deacon
Paunch, who wagered that the wife and me would eat it,
without ever finding out our mistake. But, aha, lad!

The long and the short ofthe matter was this. The
Willie-goat had, for eighteen years, belonged to a
dragoon marching regiment, and, in its better days, had
seen a power of service abroad; till, being now old and
infirm, it had fallen off one of the baggage-carts, and
got its leg broken on the road to Piershill, where it
was sold to Cursecowl, by a corporal, for half-a-crown
and a dram. The four quarters he had managed to sell for
mutton, like lightning, this one buying a jigget, that
one a back ribs, and so on. However, he had to weather a
gey brisk gale in making his point good. One woman
remarked that it had an unearthly, rank smell; to which
he said, "No, no—ye do not ken your blessings, friend ;
that’s the smell of venison, for the beast was brought
up along with the deers in the Duke’s parks." And to
another wife, that, after smell-smelling at it, thought
it was a wee humphed, he replied, "Faith, that’s all the
thanks folks get for letting their sheep crop heather
among the Cheviot hills," and such-like lies. But as for
the head, that had been the doure business. Six times
had it been sold and away, and six times had it been
brought back again. One bairn said that her "mother
didna like a sheep’s-head with horns like these," and
wanted it changed for another one. A second one said,
that "it had tup’s een, and her father liked wether
mutton.” A third customer found mortal fault with the
colours, which, she said, " were not canny, or in the
Course of nature. What the fourth one said, and the
fifth one took leave to observe, I have stupidly
forgotten, though, I am sure, I heard both; but I mind
one remarked, quite off-hand, as she sought back her
money, that "unless sheep could do without beards, like
their neighbours, she would keep the pot boiling with a
piece beef in the meantime? After all this—would any
mortal man believe it ?—Deacon Paunch, the greasy Daniel
Lambert that he is, had taken the wager, as I before
took opportunity to remark, that our family would
swallow the bait ! But, aha, he was off his eggs there!

James and me were so tickled with Cursecowl’s wild,
outrageous, off-hand, humoursome way of telling his
crack, that, though sore with neighering, none of the
two of us ever thought of rising ; Cursecowl chapping in
first one stoup, and then another, and birling the
tankard round the table, as if we had been drinking
dub-water. I daresay I would never have got away, had I
not slipped out behind Lucky Thamson’s back—for she was
a broad fat body, with a round-eared mutch, and a
full-plaited check apron—when she was drawing the" sixth
bottle of small beer, with her corkscrew between her
knees ; Cursecowl lecturing away, at the dividual
moment, like a Glasgow professor, to James Batter, whose
een were gathering straws, on a pliskie he had once, in
the course of trade, played on a conceited body of a
French sick-nurse, by selling her a lump of fat pork 'to
make beef-tea of to her mistress, who was dwining in the
blue Beelzebubs.

Ohone, and woe ’s me, for old Father Adam and the fall
of man! Poor, sober, good, honest James Batter was not,
by a thousand miles, a match for such company.
Everything, however, has its moral, and the truth will
out. When Nanse and me were sitting at our breakfast
next morning, we heard from Benjie, who had been early
up fishing for eels at the water-side, that the whole
town talk was concerning the misfortunate James Batter,
who had been carried home, totally incapable, far in the
night, by Cursecowl and an Irish labourer—that sleeped
in Widow Thamson’s garret—on a hand-barrow, borrowed
from Maister Wiggie’s servant-lass, Jenny Jessamine.

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